  Can be used to evaluate alternate solutions 

 Can be performed by developers 

  More structured than a heuristic evaluation 
  Useful for assessing “exploratory learning” 
 Disadvantages: 
  Tedious to perform 
 May miss inconsistencies and general and recurring problems 
 Guidelines: 
 Needed to conduct the walkthrough are: 

 General description of proposed system users and their relevant knowledge 
 Specific description of one or more core or representative tasks to be performed
  List of correct actions to complete each task 
  Review: 
  Several core or representative tasks across a range of functions 
  Proposed tasks of particular concern 
 Developers must be assigned roles of: 
  Scribe to record results of the action 
 Facilitator to keep the evaluation moving 
  Start with simple tasks 
 Don’t get bogged down demanding solutions 
 Limit session to 60 to 90 minutes 

Think-Aloud Evaluations
 Description: 
  Users perform specific tasks while thinking aloud 
 Comments are recorded and analyzed 
  Advantages: 
 Utilizes actual representative tasks 
 Provides insights into the user’s reasoning 
  Disadvantages: 
 May be distracting and unnatural for participants 
 Can slow participants thought processes 
  Can be exhausting for participant 
 Guidelines: 
  Develop: 
 Several core or representative tasks 
 Tasks of particular concern 
  Limit session to 60 to 90 minutes 
Usability
 Test 
 Description: 
 An interface evaluation under real-world or controlled conditions 
  Measures of performance are derived for specific tasks 
 Problems are identified 
  Advantages: 
 Utilizes an actual work environment 
 Identifies serious or recurring problems 
  Disadvantages: 
 High cost for establishing facility 
  Requires test conductor with interface expertise 
  Emphasizes first-time system usage 
 Poorly suited for detecting inconsistency problems
 Performance and Process Measures 
  Performance Data 
 Focuses on how well users can do their tasks 
 Completion rates 
  Completion times 
  Error rates 
  Process Data 
  Comprised of measures about what users are doing during task completion 
 Participant's self reports 
  Observation of participant behavior 
 Eye movement tracking 
Classic Experiments
 Description: 
 An objective comparison of two or more prototypes identical in all aspects except for
one design issue
 Advantages: 
 Objective measures of performance are obtained 

 Subjective measures of user satisfaction may be obtained 
  Disadvantages: 
 Requires a rigorously controlled experiment to conduct the evaluation 

 The experiment conductor must have expertise in setting up, running, and analyzing data
 collected 
 Requires creation of multiple prototypes 
 Guidelines: 
  State a clear and testable hypothesis 
 Specify a small number of independent variables to be manipulated 
  Carefully choose the measurements 
  Judiciously select study participants and carefully or randomly assign them to groups 
 Control for biasing factors 
  Collect the data in a controlled environment 
 Apply statistical methods to data analysis 
 Resolve the problem that led to conducting the experiment 
Focus Groups